Animal Classification Vocabulary
Use vocabulary for classifying animals and describing life cycles — vertebrate, invertebrate, mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian, fish, insect, arachnid, larva, pupa, metamorphosis, gestation, offspring, complete metamorphosis, incomplete metamorphosis — and apply these correctly when sorting and comparing organisms
What a learner can do afterwards
- Correctly classify a set of animals as vertebrates or invertebrates, then into more specific groups
- Use 'metamorphosis' correctly to describe insect and amphibian life cycles and distinguish complete from incomplete metamorphosis
- Compare a mammal's life cycle with an insect's using precise vocabulary
1 · Read
Every animal fits into a group. If an animal has a backbone inside its body, it is a vertebrate. If it has no backbone at all, it is an invertebrate. Touch your own back: you have a backbone, so you are a vertebrate.
Vertebrates split into five smaller groups. A dog is a mammal: it grows inside its mother during gestation, then is born alive as her offspring. A robin is a bird that hatches from an egg. A snake is a reptile with dry, scaly skin. A frog is an amphibian that starts life in water. A trout is a fish that breathes through gills.
Complete metamorphosis has four different-looking stages, including a resting pupa stage. Incomplete metamorphosis skips the pupa: the young, called a nymph, already looks like a small adult and just grows bigger.
Vertebrates have backbones and invertebrates do not, and complete metamorphosis has a pupa stage while incomplete metamorphosis skips it.
2 · Watch
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8 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.